I’ve also been involved in plenty of debates about it on Twitter. Mostly it’s honest and good-natured – but with every passing result, the chasm between the hardliners on either side of the argument becomes wider.

This is the saddest part of it. The current on-pitch malaise won’t send us down – there are at least three worse clubs than us (and before anyone mentions being doubled by Fulham, we’ve done the same to Norwich and taken four points off Cardiff).

What it is doing is sullying the atmosphere at Villa Park – and tearing the supporter base apart.

The walk up to Villa Park has often been filled with trepidation this season (Picture: Getty Images)

Of course, not every fan plays out their life on social media. There will be a ‘silent majority’ who share their views only with mates down the pub. Many won’t even give Villa a thought beyond matchdays.

But the most strident opinions are expressed on Twitter, as people take to their keyboards to let off steam.

And as the anger and frustration over our results and performances grows, so does the animosity between fans who, for the most part, know each other only through online aliases.

Opinions are presented as fact if they’re your own, or belittled if they’re other people’s. Sometimes, it slips into personal slanging matches.

Rather silly small-scale ‘campaigns’ pop up, urging people to retweet pictures branded with ‘Lambert out’ or ‘spend some money’, as if it’ll make any difference.

I’m not saying we be passive observers to our club’s downfall. We need change, from the boardroom to the dugout to the pitch.

But the debate must come from a rational starting point. Neither Lambert nor Randy Lerner are going anywhere right now – and even if one or other was to leave, the arguments would soon reappear if we didn’t like whoever replaced them.

A short-term fix is a sticking plaster over a gaping wound. Our form has been dreadful under three different managers while we’ve had boom and bust under Lerner.

We need to focus on changing the whole ethos of a once-proud club driven into the ground by Lerner’s crippling austerity, Lambert’s unclear vision and Paul Faulkner’s general incompetence.

Those who run Aston Villa, from top to bottom, are culpable of fiddling while B6 burns.

We can’t be the helpless onlookers, distracted by insular arguments. The future of our club is at stake.